Once the fighting before the inner storehouse began, the entire arsenal garrison swung into action, converging on the inner storehouse from every direction, men flooding in like a tide.
And Wei Yan rushed outward, blade in hand, as though swimming against the stream.
To keep the secret from leaking, none of the arsenal guards had been told of this operation, and Wei Yan alone had lain in wait here.
One man alone sufficed.
Most of the experts were in fact scattered throughout the city. As the lord of a single city, Wei Quji, though he had offered up the Nether Candle as bait, could not possibly place the lives of all Fenglin's people in jeopardy.
Thankfully, the Three-City Dao Debate drew a great part of the populace to watch, and the safety of the martial exercise ground was beyond all doubt. This relieved the pressure of defense by a great measure.
The city guard soldiers who came face to face with Wei Yan, without a word, turned and fell in behind him, and Wei Yan merely said offhandedly: "Hold your posts here. Do not leave without leave."
Though the Nether Candle had been taken away, the arsenal remained the foremost priority.
Two city guard soldiers still stood watch at the arsenal's great gate. Of course they had heard the commotion inside the arsenal, but until they received their orders, the gate was where their post lay.
They had braced themselves in full alert, yet when a streak of blood-red light slipped out along the wall, they remained utterly unaware.
Just then, a silk-robed dandy strolled past, snapping shut his folding fan. He swept his wide sleeve, as though flicking away the dust of travel. And that blood-serpent vanished in the instant.
The young dandy walked on, to the very end of the street, past a ready-made clothing shop, brushing shoulders at the corner with a peddler bearing shoulder poles.
Walking along Xuanwu Street, his manner was relaxed, even humming a little tune.
Two experts of the city guard swept past him — and right at his back, hacked an exposed heretic-path cultivator to death in a flurry of blades.
The dandy seemed to notice nothing, and drifted further and further away.
"Halt!" One of the city guard experts barked.
This dandy was too calm, and it had roused his suspicion.
The dandy stood with his back to the two guardsmen now on their guard, and slowly drew his lips up into a cruel grin.
He was just about to break loose in the middle of the street, when suddenly there came the howl of a long blade cleaving air.
"Swift Snow!" His eyes flew wide, and he looked down at the narrow, straight blade, slowly vanishing into his chest, drawn out.
The blade was called Swift Snow; the man was called Wei Yan.
Perhaps understanding already that death was unavoidable, he did not ask how he had been found out, how he had been overtaken.
The fear in his eyes receded, gradually taken over by a kind of fevered zeal, and he smiled in triumph: "The thing... is not on me!"
Wei Yan sheathed his blade and walked away.
By this time, the peddler of the carrying poles was already walking along Green Wood Avenue. His two bamboo baskets, laden with bits and pieces of sundry goods, were both covered with a length of hemp cloth, swaying on his shoulders.
In one of those baskets, amid the sundries, there was now a single strange object. A short segment of candle, its color pitch-black.
...
On the viewing stand, Dong A and Wei Quji both watched the fight on the field, but no one knew that their attention was not on it.
As far as Wei Quji was concerned, he cared far more about the trap he had laid within the city this day. A very simple lure, but rendered effectively striking by flawless execution.
For Dong A, on the one hand, compared with the outcome of the Three-City Dao Debate, he cared more about the safety of all Fenglin; on the other, he held a measure of confidence in Zhang Linchuan — unshaken even after Lin Zhengren revealed his Sixth-Rank strength.
The two great figures who stood at the very summit of Fenglin City spoke only where each other's ears could reach.
Wei Quji sneered coldly: "See a Nether Candle and they rush to it like dogs to a bone. Those fellows were indeed the sorcerers of the White Bone Path!"
The Nether Candle was a treasure of the Netherworld, and moreover was precisely a relic that the White Bone Path had left behind. Wei Quji had brought out the Nether Candle deliberately, precisely to put his suspicion to the proof.
Dong A frowned: "The lineage of the White Bone Path has been annihilated for two hundred years now. The founding ancestor's nine years of purging in his day slew them all, squeaky clean. And there are still remnants surviving to this day?"
"A centipede with a hundred legs dies but never rots."
...
Lin Zhengren had defeated Fu Baosong, plainly without much effort. The next bout would be his duel with Zhang Linchuan.
Zhang Linchuan kept the hand over his mouth, frowning: "Could we clean this place up before we fight?"
His previous opponent had been crushed in a single overwhelming blow. Facing Lin Zhengren now, he would not be able to spare a thought for anything else.
The Dao Academy did have a dedicated sparring ground, but the Fenglin City Dao Academy could not hold so many spectators. Besides, this open square before the City Lord's Mansion had no formation marks engraved upon it.
The ground where they fought had long since been battered to pieces. The tiles were shattered, mud and water had run together, and there were countless pits and hollows — added to which was the blood some had spilled. In every sense it was a desolate wreck.
Zhang Linchuan's brow knit very hard: "This fighting ground is truly filthy."
Dong A did not even raise his eyelid: "Say one more word of nonsense, and I'll dunk you in a cesspit for a soak of three days."
Zhang Linchuan tucked away his handkerchief at once, and turned to the referee a very polite, very mechanical smile: "We can begin when you please."
At the referee's command, Lin Zhengren strode forward.
And there a thunderclap burst.
Boom!
Boom! Boom!
Lin Zhengren's body rolled like a wave, the triple surge beneath him.
And behind him, three scorched, blackened craters had been left.
Zhang Linchuan had many faults. One might call him fastidious, finicky to a fault, a creature of conveniences, willful and self-serving.
But his strength could not be denied.
All knew the lightning arts to be fierce. Yet how many could truly wield them with such ease?
The two instantaneous Dao arts that Lin Zhengren had engraved within his Heaven-Access Palace were the triple surge and the Entangling Wall of Vine-Snakes. His first move had not been defense, but movement — and naturally, to attack!
A seed broke through the earth, a flower-bud bloomed, its petals hooks like fangs. And bit down in a single mouthful!
A lower-grade Grade-B Dao art, the Devouring Flower.
Zhang Linchuan drifted past with a feather-light touch, flung a thunderball over his shoulder into the flower's maw, and vaulted skyward, seal-hands pointing at the heavens above the charred corpse of the Devouring Flower.
Dense clouds gathered, thunder rumbling dim within them.
Roar!
A Water Dragon Wave burst forth roaring — but rather than attacking Zhang Linchuan, it merely lashed its tail, scattering the dark clouds in a single blow.
Water mist exploded across the sky, lightning flashed again and again, and quickly dispersed.
The scene possessed a striking beauty, drawing cries of wonder from the onlookers.
But the Dao art Zhang Linchuan had so carefully prepared had been scattered to nothing.
If the most marked difference between an expert who had opened the Heaven-Earth Gate and cultivators below Seventh Rank lay in being able to begin mastering Grade-A Dao arts...
And if some of exceptional talent — men like Wang Changxiang, like Zhang Linchuan — had already grasped some Grade-A Dao art before reaching Sixth Rank, could the gap be smoothed away? Wherein lay the difference between them and the experts who had opened the Heaven-Earth Gate?
Lin Zhengren gave the answer.
An expert who had opened the Heaven-Earth Gate was nearly one with heaven and earth, able to penetrate deep into the flow of primal essence, and in the first instance to perceive the flaws in any Dao art.
Its manifestation in battle was shattering Zhang Linchuan's still-preparing powerful Dao art.
But it did not end there.
In almost the blink of an eye, Lin Zhengren appeared before Zhang Linchuan.
It was only then that the crowd noticed a Water Dragon Wave beneath his very feet. He had, it seemed, ridden this attacking Dao art itself to close the distance!
Having opened the Heaven-Earth Gate, he had gained a wholly fresh understanding of every Dao art, greatly shortening his seal-forming time, and swiftly opening up yet other variations.
Zhang Linchuan was still in mid-air when Lin Zhengren's hand pressed against his body.
The outcome seemed about to be fixed.